When you become a manager, there is no guarantee that all of your employees will physically work in the same location as you do. Some may work at another one of your organization’s physical locations. Some may work in a different city, state, or even in a different country. Some may simply work from home. As you can imagine, this can present some challenges to leveling the playing field of ensuring that each of your team members or teams get their fair share of your guidance and attention.
Earlier in my career, I was in a position that worked out of a different office than my director, so I saw her about once every other week, sometimes longer. During that time, I learned some things that I, the employee of a traveling, or geographically displaced director, wished had been different. Likewise, if you are a manager of remote employees or teams, I’m sure that there are things that your employees absolutely love about working remotely, as well as having you as their manager. Conversely, I also imagine that there are some aspects that they wish were different.
Although I had been a manager, I had never managed a remote team, so when I suddenly found myself the manager of an employee who works at another location, as well as the HR resource for colleagues at another one of our locations, this aspect of management was new to me. Besides getting advice from the articles that I read, and accepting guidance from my director, I decided to develop my own plan to effectively manage my new team, including my remote employee. As I began to settle into my new role, I developed the following management practices of my own: 1) Realizing that each employee is different; 2) Interacting every day; 2) Responding early and keeping a list; 3) Facilitating two-way honesty; 4) Acting inclusively; and, 5) Getting together. I explain below what each of these practices means for me and how I hold myself accountable to each.
Each employee is different – If you haven’t already realized it, you will learn that each team member is unique. Some really enjoy their job and are fully engaged. Some like their job pretty well, but their heart is not entirely into it. If they had their choice, they would do something different, but current circumstances do not allow them to. Some simply tolerate their job in anticipation of the paycheck that they will receive. Some work well independently and some need your input in every situation that they face. As you learn your team members’ unique personalities you will learn how to guide and support each one and how to communicate effectively with each. Yes, it may involve some trial and error, but sooner or later, you will figure it all out. Just don’t lose your cool during the challenging times.
Interact Every Day – By speaking with your remote employee(s) daily, you have less of a chance of being blindsided by issues. Your regular interactions with them will help you learn to read their moods and enable you to address any matters that need attention. You will likely also be reminded of seemingly insignificant matters that you need/should share with the team. Your remote staff will subsequently not feel so far removed from you or other team members who may work together at the same location on a regular basis. I realize that this can be quite a challenge when you have a large remote team, so you might want to adjust your direct contact to every other day or once per week. Whatever the cadence, try to be consistent. Because I have only one remote employee, I make it a habit to speak with her directly almost every day. As a result, we have developed an awesome work relationship.
Respond early – Try to not leave your remote staff hanging when they reach out to you for guidance on a work-related issue. I do everything within my power to respond in a timely manner to my geographically-displaced employee’s IM messages, calls, emails, and text messages, particularly since she works well independently and only reaches out when she needs to. I endeavor to do the same in response to my colleagues who work at a different physical location and seek guidance from our office, which provides administrative oversight, for the same reasons. Let’s admit, for most of us, in spite of all our good intentions, our day can get crazier with each passing minute and hour. So, our “get-it-done” list can easily get rearranged by circumstances outside of our control. So, even if you are unable to respond fully to your team member’s request for assistance, an acknowledgment can sometimes tithe them over until you have a minute to at least see what the nature of their concern is. If I am unable to fully address a concern from my employee who works at a different location, I will call her, ask her to describe the details surrounding her concern, then think about it for a while as I go about the workday, then follow up with her in the afternoon to talk through possible solutions. I also keep a legal pad with a running list of matters, as well as flagged items in Outlook, that I need to discuss and close out with my director, Vice Chancellor, and/or team members.
Be mutually honest – As a manager, you will face situations that you are not able to resolve due to timing, priorities, funding, etc. What I have learned to do is to be respectfully honest if I am unable to take action. Also, as a manager, you may have information that you may not be allowed to share with your staff, so I typically do not tell my staff that I don’t know something when I do. I tell them that I can’t share everything that I know with them yet. As a result, they respect me and I earn more of their trust, even if they don’t agree with my decision. I also remain aware that I am interacting with adults who have opinions and have every right to express them in a respectful manner, so I encourage them to express their frustrations when they arise. This gives me the opportunity to try and help them to see things from another perspective if necessary or to take the matter as one of my “to do” items that I need to address on my employee’s behalf. So, I suggest that if you know that you cannot grant your employee’s request, tell them that you can’t. Don’t string them along. For example, if he/she is currently working a five-day schedule that consists of three days in the office and two days remotely, and they ask if they can work remotely full-time, let them know if their request is reasonable or not based on business needs. You are held accountable for treating your employees fairly. A manager whose team members don’t perceive them as fair loses credibility. So, if you are considering accommodating an employee request, but would not be able to accommodate the same, or a similar request, for other team members, I recommend that you give your decision some serious thought.
Act Inclusively – This one is pretty simple. Make it a point to include everyone on updates. Don’t update a couple of team members and leave the others to find out for themselves. If you operate otherwise, it won’t take long before you will face a mutiny, and possibly find your job in jeopardy.
Get Together – I will be the first to tell you that I don’t particularly like meetings; however, they are necessary. Also, when your team is geographically dispersed, organizing a meeting is even more of a challenge. This is when it helps to use technology to our advantage. One thing that my current employer definitely does well is to leverage virtual meeting platforms. You see, our enterprise consists of twenty-six institutions, a corporate office, a shared services center, a library system, and a host of other offices and functional areas that are located across the state. As you can imagine, we have to be creative when we want to share information enterprise-wide. So, when I joined the organization, it swore by WebEx…so much so, that I purchased a subscription to do my HR by Nnamtique webinars. Recently though, we transitioned to Skype and I actually like it. We have participated in meetings with several hundred attendees. In our smaller meetings, we’ll sometimes get a group in one room and enable video. This enables people to feel more like they’re a part of the same meeting. The other great thing about this is that we can chat questions, get answers, record the meeting, then when the meeting’s over, send the recording, slide deck, and relevant documents to all of the participants with just a few clicks of a mouse. As you can see, there are ways around the challenge of you and your team not being able to physically get together in one place. Use the next best option and meet virtually. You’ll likely see that your team remains engaged and appreciates the time that they can get together, discuss workplace matters, and brainstorm about upcoming projects.
Hold everyone accountable – One of the worst things you can do as a manager with any team, especially one who works remotely, is fail to hold everyone, including yourself, accountable for getting the job done. In today’s technologically-connected work environments, neither you nor your team should ever use your remoteness as an excuse for not getting things done. If you do you’ll completely kill the whole ‘remote employees are more productive” mindset. Use it to your advantage. Since you are working remotely, you are in a great place to take advantage of each team member’s strengths. Some people, like me, work best early in the day. Some others work best in the afternoons or even evenings, and since remote teams work on project-based assignments, it really shouldn’t matter when everyone works, just that they produce a quality product, on budget, and on time.
There’s my two cents worth of management advice. I would love to know what some of your effective management practices are. So, feel free to email me back at [email protected] with your ideas. Remember, we’re all in this together…cheering each other and our teams to success.
This is an original post by HR by Nnamtique (nnamtique.com). Connect with us via email us at [email protected]. Visit our teachable school at career-search-academy.teachable.com; on Twitter at @HRbyNnamtique; and of FaceBook at Facebook.com/HRbyNnamtique; and our FaceBook group, Career Success Champions.
